Many questions have been asked and are still being asked concerning the census which the Manchoukuo government conducted in 1940. It seems, therefore, that there is a need for a somewhat detailed statement of the background, aims, and methods of that census, and for a description of the results, in so far as they are available at present. No one familiar with the history of Manchuria will deny that it is one of the most vital and has been one of the most contested areas of the Far East. And though the vast majority of Americans, as well as the vast majority of Chinese, will deplore the auspices under which this census was conducted, it would be unrealistic to ignore the event, or to deny that the complete results, when they become available, will be of enormous value to those who must plan for the rehabilitation of Manchuria, and to those who hope to develop commercial relations with that area.

Germany's role in the events leading up to Pearl Harbor needs to be re-examined in the light of documents published since the end of the war. These sources help correct certain misconceptions about German policy which were held during the conflict. The Allied powers believed at that time that Hitler had long-range plans for conquest and that as a part of these plans had, in one way or another, pushed Japan into war with the United States.

Until very recently, much of the literary scholarship on the eighteenth-century Chinese novel Honglou meng (The Story of the Stone or Dream of the Red Chamber) was centered on what was seen as the autobiographical nature of the work. Critics of the novel, especially those in China, tended to focus their attention on the life of the author, Cao Xueqin (d. 1763), believing the interpretation of the novel to be—to a large extent—hinged on a successful reconstruction of Cao Xueqin's familial relationships, especially with those members of the Cao clan such as Red Inkstone (Zhiyanzhai) who were the original audience of his manuscript. Yet, any literary work—even a truly autobiographical one—arises from its tradition. Its meaning will be better understood and its aesthetic values better appreciated when we consider it in relation to other works in that tradition. For our interpretation of Honglou meng, what is more pertinent is therefore not the author's personal ties to his relatives but the ties of the novel to its “relatives,” works that formed the literary context for its creation.